Page 138 of Boyfriend Material
“Yes,” said Oliver. “You are.”
A snort from Christopher. “Can I just point out that you’re the one who was too busy reaming me out to introduce his own boyfriend?”
“It’s fine.” I waved my hands in what I hoped was a situation-defusing fashion. “Oliver’s told me all about you anyway. I can introduce myself.”
“Ollie’s told you about us, has he?” Christopher’s eyes gleamed wickedly. “Go on then. What’s he said?”
Whoops. “Um. You’re doctors? That you’ve been in… I want to say Mumbai but I think that’s wrong. And that you’re very nice people and he cares about you very much.”
“Yeah, I think he maybe said one of those things if you’re lucky.”
“I’m sorry, Christopher.” It was Oliver’s coldest voice. “You’re not that interesting a topic of conversation.”
“I’d be devastated by that comeback, except you never say anything about anyone. You’ve told us more about Luc than you have about your last six boyfriends, and all you told us about him was his name.”
I put a hand to my heart. “I feel so special.”
“You should.” Mia smuggled a smile across the no-man’s-land between the siblings. “He mentioned you without being asked and everything.”
Christopher was scrutinising me in a slightly awkward way. “He’s not your usual type, Ollie. Which is probably a good thing.”
“Hard as it may be for you to believe,” Oliver sneered, “I don’t choose my romantic partners to please you.”
“True.” Christopher had good pause game. “You choose them to please Mum and Dad.”
There was a deeply nasty silence.
“I hear from Father,” said Oliver placidly, “you’re starting a family.”
There was another somehow even nastier silence.
At the end of which, Mia fixed her brother-in-law with an irate glare. “Fuck off, Oliver. I’m getting a drink.”
She fucked off and got a drink.
“What the hell”—Christopher rounded furiously on Oliver—“is wrong with you, you sanctimonious little shit?”
Oliver folded his arms. “It was a perfectly civil question.”
“No, it was stirring, and you know it was stirring.”
“There wouldn’t be anything to stir if you stopped dangling the possibility of grandchildren over our parents.”
“That is not—”
“Oh, it absolutely is. You can’t bear the idea of them not worshipping you.”
Well, this was fun. And I had sort of signed up to have Oliver’s back here, but I didn’t think that stretched to watching him be a dick to his brother. Who, to be fair, was being equally dickish. But this was getting way too much.
“You know”—I forced myself briefly into the conversation—“I think I need a drink too.”
And before anyone could stop me, I made a dash for the big tent.
Chapter 45
I found Mia in a corner, with a glass of champagne in each hand.
“Good plan,” I told her, and immediately copied it.
